Ask Book Chic (13)

Thanks everyone for all the great questions!! I can't wait to start answering them all. If you're one of the later questions, it may take a while for me to get to you because I usually do these every other week however this month is a bit different. See, I'm doing an LGBT Week next week, then Fresh New Voice of YA the week after. So there'll be an edition this week (now) and then one the final week of October. But they will all get answered eventually. The winner of the contest has been notified by email, so if you didn't hear from me, you didn't win. Anyway, without further ado, here are my responses to your questions!


Christina asks "How do you manage keeping up with the blog while still living life?

How many hours to you spend a week blogging on average?"

1) I'll be honest. I occasionally work on the blog during the day at my job. But most of the work is usually done on weekends preparing for the upcoming week and getting posts set up and scheduled. During the week, I may write a review or two but it's not hard to set aside 15-30 minutes in the evening to write one up. Also, I don't have much of a life, lol. I live with my best friend so we mainly just hang out with each other and that's enough; her boyfriend visits on weekends. We do have other friends too but hang out with them just occasionally. We're too busy with work and then my roommate is taking a night class now so that cuts into her free time, so if she's doing homework, I tend to be working on the blog or answering emails (and very rarely working on my novel- I really need to get back to that).

Anyway, the best thing to do when trying to balance life and blogging is to try to aside a chunk of time, big or small, per day or per week to work on your blog. But be flexible; real life does get in the way sometimes. Having a blog is hard work, but it's also insanely fun and a hobby- don't lose sight of that by becoming too rigid in your blogging time.

2) I honestly have no idea- maybe like 5 hours per week? I've never really thought about it before. For me, I'm pretty quick with setting up my posts because I know exactly what I want to post that week and the weekend before, I just set up every post as best I can and tweak them during the week. I have a whole schedule for the rest of this month and I'm working on next month's. It's really helped me to focus and cut down on my overall blogging time because I spend maybe like an hour thinking up and putting together an entire month, then tweak it a bit week to week depending on where I am with my reading. Reviews are the hardest and so I usually end up having to move those around every week because I was overly ambitious in my schedule (I've been trying to do 4-5 reviews per week but can only do 3 per week, it seems). Aside from that though, scheduling a month ahead has really helped me out and I'm glad I started doing it.


Cass asks "What do you look for in a YA book blog?"

I look for a variety of things- I enjoy book discussions and thoughtful reviews but it's also nice to see a blog that's just a lot of fun to read even if the depth may not be there. A sense of humor will always endear me to you, so seeing one utilized in a blog is great for me to see. Above all though, just a passion for YA is all I need to add a blog to my Google Reader. It shows me you're committed and are enjoying what you're blogging about and that comes across to me.

Oh, and gay male bloggers tend to be automatic adds, lol. I like chatting with other gay bloggers and being a lone male for so long, I yearn for fellow boys to talk to. Not that I don't love my ladies (Kristi, Khy, Alexa, Susan, Meaghan, and Cat- looking at you guys!) though. :)


Inspired Kathy asks "If you could travel to any place from a fantasy novel where would you choose?

Which mythical creature would you like to have as a pet?"

1) I don't know. I think I'd prefer something more modern, like how urban fantasy is written, but I can't think of what world I'd like to go to. The ones that pop up are Tamora Pierce's worlds, specifically Emelan, or Malinda Lo's world from Ash, as it seemed like gay people were accepted pretty easily there (always a plus when traveling to another world, lol).

2) I'm thinking either a cait sidhe since they're close to regular cats and also because I love Grimalkin (from the Iron Fey series) and Taggle (from Plain Kate) or a mermaid, like Lish in Paranormalcy and Lily from Forgive My Fins. Though I imagine they would not want to be pets, lol.